Two Bridges
How the Kremlin likely exploits atomisation in the Russian information space, and why we must cut through this
I wrote a couple of days ago on how the Russians have tried to mitigate Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web, which I argue was an informational-psychological operation first, and a kinetic operation second.
Kyiv’s psychological operations have continued, with reported attacks on the Crimea Bridge.
Moscow’s informational response has been fascinating, revealing, to my mind, some aspects of Russian agility and reactive creativity.
I also think that the Kremlin’s answer demonstrates how well the Russians understand, possibly intuitively, informational-psychological operations and what Kyiv has been trying to achieve. Dismissing Russian knowledge of information manipulation and the psychological elements of the information war would be highly inadvisable: the Russians are masters at it.
But the Ukrainians are also extremely good. Consider how Kyiv has contemplated and covered so much in their informational activities around Spider’s Web and other recent attacks. It ensured that the attacks were filmed, transmitting them in almost real time.
Image: FPV drone launch from a truck container during operation Spider’s Web, 1 June 2025
Telegram’s ethos as an instant point-to-group messenger accentuated the immediacy of the assault. This centring of informational attacks in the war, and the new relationship between informational and kinetic fighting, underlines how this is the First Telegram War.
Kyiv also outlined its ingenuous methodology to Spider’s Web in great, unforgettable detail, ensuring that even Russians would be fascinated and drawn in.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also insisted that all operatives had fled Russia, pre-empting potential attempts to set up show trials and undermine the operation.
Bridging the gap from ignoring to distraction
All this has made Operation Spider’s Web extremely difficult to ignore.
But the Kremlin has one thing to hand when forced to respond to an extremely tricksie hand of cards. Moscow has spent the past few days flooding the information space with news about its investigation into the collapse of bridges in Bryansk and Kursk.
This response is highly interesting: partially it is out of necessity, with Moscow forced to do something about the scope of the attacks.
However, Moscow’s response also demonstrates its own deep knowledge of its information space and the Russian people. The Kremlin has likely calculated that it is better to focus people’s minds on specific events in a certain location, labelling these the results of ‘terrorism’, than to permit the Russian people to start thinking about the potential of attacks all over the country, possibly close to them.
Kyiv’s main mission is to force all Russians to face up to their war, to make all Russians realise that they cannot remain detached, shrugging their shoulders and complying with the Kremlin’s decision to wage a war in a neighbouring, but distant, country.
Moscow is responding to this by distracting from the all-encompassing threat of involvement in the war and the risk of attack anywhere in the country, to presenting news about two bridges in places that are extremely far—geographically and mentally—from most Russians.
In this, the Kremlin is also demonstrating its great awareness of the atomisation of Russian society. Many countries have large regional discrepancies, but the distance and particular makeup of the sprawling Russian empire seem to mean that Russians have staggering appalling knowledge of—or concern for—events that go on in other Russian regions. Russian society is extremely atomised: something that outside policy-makers and observers do not seem to grasp.
The Kremlin seems extremely good at exploiting that, and containing regional issues, insulating them from other parts of the country when it requires.
For example, I well recall sitting with some Siberians in 2002 and trying to talk to them about the extreme violence in Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus, and they were astonished: they thought that the Kremlin had restored complete peace there.
This lack of regional foresight and insight seems to persist, and serves the Kremlin well. The majority of Russians seem to have very little idea about— or interest in—the impact of the war on the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, and the massive suffering that has resulted from the invasion of Ukraine.
This atomisation and insular perspective might explain to some extent the lack of opposition to the war, and might be conducive to a tendency to see the nation and its supposed role on more abstract terms. I am not sure; it is getting late and I have been working all day. However, it is incumbent on policy-makers, and journalists, to consider nuances and regionalisation in their thinking about Russia, and to assist Kyiv as much as they can in undermining the Kremlin and forcing Russians to perceive their place in this war.